So saying, he knelt upon the floor, and holding his musket in a horizontal position, a few inches above it, he gave a furious thrust into the aperture.  To his astonishment, for notwithstanding his half bravado, he had not seriously anticipated such a result, he found the advance of his weapon slightly arrested by a yielding body, and even had not a sharp cry of pain from the other extremity of the trough, satisfied him of the fact, the peculiar sensation he experienced as the steel overcame the resistance was sufficient to convince Green, little accustomed even as he had been to bayonet men, that the bayonet had entered into some soft part of the human body.

To the cry of the wounded man, succeeded a savage and threatening yell from the united band, and now re-commenced the grating sound which had two or three times before excited the conjectures of the besieged.

“Ah I yell away you devils; that’s all the good you’ll get,” exclaimed Green, exulting at his success; “but don’t take so tight a grip of my bayonet.  I say, Philips, lend us a hand, if I shan’t lose my musket with that fellow strugglin’ like a speared Mascalinga.”

Both now pulled at the firelock, with all their strength.  Suddenly the resistance ceased, and they fell sideways on the floor, bringing the musket with them, but without the bayonet.  At the same moment a shot was fired into the aperture, and the ball whizzing by the ear of Philips, and passing through Green’s right leg, lodged in the partition beyond.

“Stand aside, men,” shouted the corporal, “stand from before that hole, or we shall be marks in this light for the skulking villains,”

Jackson, who had been dispatched for one of the small round hickory logs that lay piled up in a corner near the chimney, now approached with on that was just large enough to fit tightly in the aperture.  All seized it, and taking the precaution to keep their legs out of danger, jammed one end into the mouth of the drain, adding afterwards a few heavy blows from the axes of Le Noir and Ephraim Giles, which had been found in a corner of the room.

“Now then,” said the Virginian, after having examined the small window of the bed room, and securely fastened the shutter—­“we’ve not much more to fear.  They’re two to one its true, but I defy them to do us much harm before daylight, when, I take it they’ll be off, if not sooner.”

“Well, then, corporal,” suggested Green, “I vote that as we’re pretty safe, and have yet that piece of plunder, we set to work and cook it, for I’m devilish hungry, and so I think we must all be, seeing as how we hain’t had a regular meal the whole day, besides if we rummage the place, we may chance to light upon somethin’ else.  I see the varmint have carried off the nice row of venison hams that used to hang up round the chimney, but there may be somethin’ in the loft.”

“No bad thought that of yours, Green,” answered the corporal, “Cass, you killed the bird, you must pluck it and grill it.”